Dissolution

I think I have only once taken a photograph in the Parliamentary Chamber before, and that was at an external event, not during a sitting.  Permission has to be sought from the Presiding Officer for any photography during business but as this records the moment at which the Presiding Officer had stepped down with her two deputies onto the floor of the Parliament after her farewell speech I suspect that formally the Parliament wasn't in session at this moment.   So I am safe from rebuke.

In any case the picture does give the view from where I normally sit in the chamber these days so it also adds to the understanding of the place, which I know people like. 

I stop being an MSP at midnight tonight because that is when the Parliament dissolves.  We are all then candidates for election and not members. 

The final days business (which included a motion of condolence for those killed and injured in Brussels)  finished at lunchtime .  After a noisy First Ministers Questions  there was a motion of thanks to Tricia Marwick as Presiding Officer and then she was piped from the chamber.  

Tricia and I shared an office in the first year of the Parliament in 1999 when I was the SNP Business Manager and she was  my deputy.  It was  therefore an emotional moment to witness her retirement after all she has done, and I will miss her if I am back in six weeks time.

Anyway before we  went our separate ways  all the MSPs  posed for a photograph with her on the steps going down into the Garden Lobby. which I have included as my extra photo for the day , almost as a souvenir !  

After that we split into our parties again and went off for our various campaign launches - the SNP one was in Dynamic Earth , as it was five years ago and I have an extra photo of that too, this time as a reminder to me of how campaign time is already passing.  

I recorded that and the start of this term and now I have come to the end of the term and full circle.   I have managed  to post a photograph on every one of the days in-between but I am not stopping - the local campaign in Argyll & Bute is now underway and I will be blipping that as well !